It's not Dragon Warrior, but Enix's latest has great potential!

Enix latest is a sweet looking mech game called Robot Alchemic Drive, which pits you as a normal, every day boy or girl… who has the power to control a 50 foot giant robot. While it may seem like some typical anime episode, it works surprisingly well in the game. Instead of just hopping into the mech, you actually have to board it in order to control the huge beast. This includes trying to locate where your mech is, and then getting through the parade of innocent bystanders who are trying to get away from the action. Once you start operating your mech, the real fun begins. The control scheme for RAD is pretty complex, but nothing that shouldn’t take you more than 20 minutes to get used to. The L2 and R2 triggers are used to move the left and right feet of your mech, while the analog sticks are used to control the mech’s arms. One movie that I checked out had a mech actually shoot out his fist Gekiganger-style at his opponent, but actually missed completely and destroyed a building that was situated behind the enemy.

The game is really two games in one, where you have to control your character and avoid falling debris and the two giant machines duking it out so that you don’t get squished underneath their metallic feet as well as actually controlling your mech via remote control in order to save the city. Graphically RAD is very nice, with lots of colour and tons of stuff happening on the screen at once. While I can’t say more than that, I will say this much: the mech designs themselves were created by Toshihiro Kawamoto, who some of you may know as the man behind the characters of the anime Cowboy Bebop. Robot Alchemic Drive is scheduled for release sometime in November of this year, so make sure to keep an eye out on it!